We Are
by Stars of Artemis
Summary: Its more than just a saga or a battle or a war. Its more than just a trilogy of events, the great and the terrible, that changed the world. Its what made it. Series of snapshots from all veiws, T1-DotM. R&R!
1. Will

"Captain Lennox, your wife is online."

One simple little web chat in Qatar, so many years ago. Five minutes of bliss, a loving wife and a beautiful baby daughter.

One soldier's life spared.

He went over there to protect them from the world, to keep them safe. They are his driving fire and his every breath; they are why he lives. And _they _ended up saving _him_, without even realizing it.

To think that all of this started with one simple, glitching webcam…sometimes it blows him away. And to think that _he'd_ be involved in this…Guys like him were in movies about small-town stories centering on the "golden boy", or maybe Army thrillers about a man finding his way in the world. Anywhere he went, it was Action/Adventure all the way, but to think he'd be involved with aliens and secrecy, and throw a bit of _Sci-fi _in the mix…

He guesses he was never meant to be the Army movie guy after all. He was the small dose of real-and-physical _in _the Sci-fi movie. And frankly, that's where he belongs.

He thinks back on it, all those years ago. The heat of the desert that burned even out of the sun, and at the time he had been…well, pissed that he had to cut things so short. He had never imagined what those few little frames of static would mean for him. What it would mean for the world.

And now here he is, in the middle of hell, for the third time, and they're all he can think about as he rushes through the ruin that was once Chicago, trying desperately to find Epps and Sam and their little renegade team.

He wants to do nothing more than just zone out and think of Sarah and her fair hair and angel's face and her arms around him, and Annabelle's huge, bright eyes and soft smile and loving, meaningless words while this place goes to the Pit. But he has to keep his mind clear; he has to focus if he wants to get out of this alive, and see them safe again.

Qatar was bad; his guys were on the line, but at least the danger was far from home. And Giza…damn, Giza was a day straight out of hell, but it was _far from home_. But this, here…this was _Chicago_.

_Freaking Chicago_!

The Decepticons had crossed a line. They were on his turf now, and the Autobots'. They had threatened his family and blown his friends out of the sky.

To say he was pissed off and itching to blow them all to hell would be an _understatement_.

"Sir!" One of them calls back over his shoulder.

Will, hearing alien shrieks he knows don't belong to his bots, rounds the corner.

"Mark it!" he orders, cocking his machine gun viciously. "Decepticon!"

There's the sound of something very bad, and very, very _big _smashing into everything through the close rubble; finally, the team manages to make it through the dense pile and to the small intersection, where chaos is unfolding like crazy.

There's a massive Decepticon he realizes is Starscream, and that's bad news, and worse, he's thrashing around like a fish on a deck, slamming his head into buildings and clawing stone and brick off into the streets below like he's on fire.

And then he hears the screaming.

There's a girl dressed in gleaming white against all the grey, cowering behind a smashed telephone booth, shouting a name that makes his blood chill.

"_Sam!" _she screams, as he charges through the chaos to slam down against the wall beside her.

_Carly_.

He turns around, and realizes with a sickening feeling that there is a long cable attached to Starscream's head- the reason he's flailing around, there's only one optic glowing- and Sam is hanging on the other end like a puppet, being thrown in all directions and coming dangerously close to being smashed up against the walls and the Decepticon himself.

"What the hell is he doing?" Will yells, immediately trying to formulate a plan. But God so help him, he can't think of one thing to do.

Then suddenly Starscream jerks his head, slamming up against a crumbling office building, and Sam disappears through the shattered window.

"Now!" Will roars.

His guys do the best they can, firing at all vulnerable shots, but Starscream is letting his gun rip blindly now, tearing everything apart. They duck down, they hide, and just as Will throws a glance over his shoulder again to watch the robot, he sees Sam leap out of the window, land on Screamer's head, and stab him right in the other eye with something long and pointy.

Okay, the kid has _lost it_.

He jumps down, much to Will's relief, slinging like crazy on the line, and making a beeline straight for him.

"Sam!" yells Will, grabbing the boy as he catapults down to keep him from zipping over the side of the building again. But there's something wrong, the cable is still attached, linking Sam's arm to the Decepticon's head…

Sam is yelling, he is yelling, stretching up to try and slice through the cable with his knife, but Starscream, blind with pain, falls to all fours and begins crawling out of the giant alley, towards the main roads, dragging the boy and the soldier along with him. The asphalt scraps Will's long black suit and the cable is harder to reach than ever, and he and Sam are still yelling at each other, but he doesn't let go.

Then finally, something the kid says sticks. "We have to get out- the bomb!" the boy shouts.

"WHAT BOMB?"

"THAT BOMB!" he jerks his tangled hand at Screamer's head.

This can _not _be happening.

And then they're moving again, being dragged against the ground, and Will's stomach leaves him in a lurch and Starscream decides at that moment to stand up, pulling them both with him. And still Will hangs on, struggling desperately to hack at the cable, but it's all he can do to keep from falling to the ground thirty feet below as he and Sam sway like branches caught in the breeze of a hurricane.

"I got it!" he shouts, finally grabbing a firm hold on the cable above them. "How long do we have?"

Sam doesn't grace him with an answer. Starscream's jets roar to life, and the panicked Decepticon tries to flee, jetting up sixty feet into the air. Sam and Will scream with everything that's left in their lungs. It's like a rollercoaster, only a million times worse, and everything is hanging on by Sam's hand and Will is holding on so hard that he can't feel his fingers anymore, with his palm clamping painfully over the cable. His biggest thoughts and greatest fears are rolled into one; he is focusing everything on not letting go, and everything on trying to cut them loose.

Starscream begins to fall, his jets spluttering out as he bumps into a skyscraper, and lands on top of a parking garage, jostling them, and with one last ounce of strength, Will reaches up and slices through the cable with his knife.

They fall, and they fall, and they fall, as Starscream's head explodes and red fire and blue sparks shower down around them, and right as Will is sure they're screwed and he'll never get to say goodbye to Sarah again, massive, warm hands are around his body, bringing him down to earth even faster, but he's not afraid; he _knows _these hands…

The world blurs into one long shape as they summersault, and he and Sam land heavily on Bumblebee's hood as the Camaro backs up hurriedly, trying to avoid Starscream's falling carcass.

They lay there for a minute after it's over, and to Will, everything seems twice as brilliant and crystal clear, his mind is so in shock he can't think, and every muscle in his body is turned to rubber.

Finally, the boy breaks the stunned pause.

"…Well, he's dead." is Sam's brilliant line.

Will looks at him and stares. Just stares.

And then he remembers how he reacted the first time he killed a Decepticon, jumping up and down like a little girl, and decides not to judge too harshly.

This boy is as much his own as Epps or any NEST soldiers or any Autobot. And now that he's not immediately in the claws of death, momma-bear-Lennox mode is tuned down a tad, and he can breathe again.

If they think it's bad when he does it, they should see _Sarah_…

* * *

><p>He won't pretend like he didn't feel like he'd won every lottery in the world when Optimus finally spoke.<p>

"We will never leave your planet alone."

He looked down at the ground, and shamelessly, a tear slipped down his face.

He's been in NEST for about six years now. He's been a soldier for even longer. The last time he almost cried was the first time he held his daughter, and Ironhide was there to see it in a stunned silence.

And here, now…

He's going to see Sarah and Annabelle again. He won't have to go to the Witwicky's house…er, R.V, and explain why Sam won't be coming back. He won't have to close the NBE-sized hangar in Diego Garcia.

They've _won_.

Part of him can't believe it, but they've done it. _They've _done it. He takes a deep, trembling breath, sniffs, and looks up, blue eyes reflecting the dim sky, one hand on his hip supporting his gun, as he looks at the creatures that brought his world tidings of hell, and then delivered them from it with pure sacrifice. He sees the ruins of Chicago. He ignores it for now. Instead he looks at Carly and Sam, so young and so determinedly in love, and knows there's hope for the future.

* * *

><p><strong>AN; **to all those who have been saying i missed something in the action or messed up the facts, here's my note; Thanks, but i cant get EVERY little detail, like Starscream kicking someone and missing, becasue the point of veiw I'm using requires a little less detail and a little more panic, since Will isn't looking down at what Screamer's doing and more looking up and trying to get the hell off that cable. If you think I missed something CRUICIAL though, then please, tell me so i don't spend months looking like an ignorant idiot. Thanks to all who have reviewed this fic!


	2. Leo

He drummed his fingers on the edge of his laptop, the low taps breaking the pressing silence that seems to push on his eardrums and make the air hum, as if with electricity.

Then, without thinking, without really knowing what he's doing, he fires up his laptop and logs on.

It takes him a while to pull up the site page. And once he does, simply stares at the screen, as if looking for some answer there behind the bold white font and cheap red background.

It's his website. His life. His high school pride and his college dream. And now, none of it even makes sense.

He thinks on the last few years, and then the last three days, and comes to the shameful and embarrassing conclusion that Mikaela was screaming at him all along; he is an idiot.

He wasn't the popular one as a kid, obviously. In middle school, he used to hide in the bathroom stalls with his feet up on the toilet and the door locked, cowering in his little fragile prison of stone gray, graffiti walls while the bigger boys wandered around outside, talking loudly and yelling. Or he'd run from them in laps around the playground while others laughed. Or he'd hide behind a massive personality that would give him a tendency later in life to spaz out at everything big.

It was the teachers as these cheap schools of his that convinced him there were issues of authority in the world. They overlooked the boys who took his money at lunch, the same boys who he would later outsmart and even get drafted into working for; their eight-grade clerk who kept track of the lunch money they stole.

Then in his first year of high school, he discovered technology. And oh, what a glorious thing it was.

Online, he could be anybody he wanted to be. The cries of people just like him, protesting against the conspiracy of the world, and he learned the secrets of what they had done, whispered by the voices others would call "wack jobs."

He moved to California. He got into computer imaging and programming. He made two best friends. Together they would sit around the neighborhood park or inside Fassbiner's loft, talking about the psycho things they had heard about the election and the invasions over cold pizza and cheap Mexican bear Leo had taken from the house.

And then he had sat at home and watched Mission City burn to hell.

He was smart. He was determined. And after long, sleepless night online, he finally found the truth; it was what he ahd always believed. Aliens were among them. Mission City wasn't just some cheapo terrorist attack. This was the real effing deal.

And so, a website was born.

Then college. Ivy League. He would have to get a new roomate; that was the inevitable- but at leat the real effing deal was still alive, and about to go big.

He had major battles with Robo-Warrior and believed himself to be the righteous right hand of conspiracy-unmasking alein god. With and insight to the world, a hero to be worshipped.

And then he had met Sam.

The kid had looked all his proof in the face, while his psycho Mom had climbed on all their furniture, and told them it was stupid, a lie.

And Leo had been furious.

This guy had a kick-ass car. He had Alice hot for him. And he already had a girlfriend that looked like some goddess out of Playboy. He would be an asset. Didn't he see that?

And then Leo's world had come down in a shower of sparks and flying books and blasted stone walls as "Alice" stormed through, and he had the idiocy to believe she was after _him_.

Why hadn't he seen it?

"Tu eres un blind-eyed idiot." he mutters to himself.

He had gotten his biggest wish; he was thrown into the life he had always wanted and imagined, with aliens towering over him and transforming into kick-butt cars, evil robots tracking his every move, on the run from the governments of the world.

It was the real effing deal.

And he had never been more scared in his life.

It was always alright before because none of it was real. He could daydream and theorize all he wanted to; but in those visions, the pain never lasted, and there was never any real danger at being involved with a bunch of illegal robots.

And then in one single afternoon, Alice had cracked that vision. And Optimus had shattered it.

He remembers seeing Optimus break through the roof of that warehouse, like a towering avenging angel, and delivering them all from certain hell. He remembers seeing Sam's face when he came back through the forest, looking like he had rolled in a dirt pile.

He remembered glimpsing that crumpled, shining body lying between the trees.

He remembered Sam's words, that this was the real effing deal, and he was in the middle of it, shouldn't he be happy?

"Just stop _complaining_!"

He was so scared, he hadn't even realized Sam was in it all along.

And then later than night, it hit him. FBI? CIA? They weren't after him; they were after _Sam_. Sure, he was at the right hand of the Wanted Alien Boy and his demon goddess girlfriend and that wack-job Robo-Warrior with all their shiny cars, but it was Sam they were after, it was Sam Megatron had pinned to that table, so why was he complaining?

Sam was everything he had ever wanted to be. The Chosen One, the Alienboy, the robot's precious human hero. Looking at the way he interacted with Bumblebee and the way the other robots- _Autobots_, he corrects himself- fought to protect him, Leo can tell that he is special to them. And Leo is willing to bet the price of next semester's tuition that Sam was in the middle of Mission City as well. Sam was living in the world Leo could only dream of for years.

And in one afternoon, looking at Sam had completely broken that dream.

In the library, when Alice was hunting them down like mice and concrete and stone was shattering all around them, Leo realized that all of this wasn't about thrilling action; it was luck and skill, trying to survive from one step to the next as you ran for your life. In the warehouse, as he watched Megatron pin down Sam and torture him and prepare to rip his brain out of his very body, he realized being wanted for your knowledge on the aliens- as he'd so foolishly deluded himself into believing he was- could actually be a fate worse than death. And when he saw the expression on Sam's face as they sat around that bonfire, after Optimus had died… he realized all of this wasn't about guts and glory. It was about heart-breaking pain and sacrifice. And when he made his last stand beside Simmons, he realized that, if Sam was once just a kid off the street like him, and was about to dash across Decepticon front lines…then maybe he could make a difference, too.

And then in that car, he had literally cried for his life.

You were so pathetic. He tells himself.

But at the end of it all, at that Pyramid with Simmons, when he chose to stay, determined to redeem at least some small part of himself…

Sam's determination, his sacrifice, and of their sacrifices, started to hit him, and hit him hard.

What are you doing? He had wondered.

Seeing all that, even if it was from just the sideline….it had changed him. Forever.

He stares at his website now, at the words of the cocky, ridiculous, spazzy teen he was three days ago, though it seems so much longer than that. He reads the words on the screen, written as if a stranger posted them.

And then he smiles at himself. And poses his fingers over his keyboard, hovering, thinking, and suddenly the words pour out in a way they never have before.

_ The last three days have been…crazy. I know, muchchos, understatement of the freaking century. But the point is, the world knows now what we've been trying- sort of- to tell them all along._

He pauses, thinking, and then brgins to type even faster, afraid his fingers won't be able to catch his thoughts in time.

_ Only it was a lot different than even we conspiracy freaks even imagined._

_ I learned a lot in the past three days, most of which cannot be repeated on this blog, unless I want to wake up in some jail cell with my life erased. I learned that college libraries are not a good place to hide when you're running for your life. I learned that airbags in certain cars work really well when you're in the free fall of your life, and I also learned that I am a whiny, selfish dumbass._

_ It doesn't matter whose right or wrong, people. It doesn't matter if your site was first, if you beat another blogger (COUGH COUGH Robo-Warrior) at uplading a video in those precious few seconds._

_ What matters is the truth. And I don't mean that statement like a used to- rather, what matters is living in the truth._

His fingers are flying over the keyboard now. The words are pouring out onto the screen like water. He can't stop. Doesn't want to.

_ So if you're reading this, you obviously have no idea how crazy it is out there. People are dying. The world is in danger. This is just the beginning. What matters in the long run isn't how long you knew what was really going on, but how you live with it._

_ I always said life as we know it is an illusion. That the psycho government peeps were keeping what was real from us. I always thought of action and glory and all that s***._

_ I was wrong._

_ This website, this conception, that we actually know the Real Effing Deal…that's the illusion. We sit on our asses and rant about what is going on and pride ourselves in knowing the truth that we imagine ourselves to be a part of, and the irony is, we don't know anything about it at all. _That's _the illusion. Because we're here imagining instead of living. And it's time we all broke free from it._

_ So if you're reading this, get off your ass and do something about it. Support the ones that came to save us, cause there's not that many of them left. Don't bother checking back for updates here again. Move on with your life. Live in the world instead of just trying to see it as something different._

_ -Leo_

He watches the little blinking line after the last letter of his name, for how long he's not sure. Then he submits it.

After a while, he logs out and shuts the computer down, the laptop closing with a sharp snap.

He never posts on his blog again.

He leans back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head and sighing, before folding his hands behind his head.

Sharksky and Fassbinder are going to be pissed, there's no doubt about it. But they haven't been through what he's been through; they haven't seen what he's seen, and part of him hopes they never will. But part of him begs that they will someday understand.

He turns off his laptop. He closes it down. He isn't Leo the robo-freak anymore. He isn't Leo the oh-my-god-I'm-destined-for-alien-greatness. But he isn't Leo-the-wide-eyes-opened-saint, either.

He's just Leo. Just him. He's balancing himself; he can feel it. He was never meant to be a hero or even part of a story like this, but he is. He was. Somehow, some way, they chose him. Not because he was special. Not because he deserved it. They-or Fate- just did.

The laptop sits on the desk, gathering dust, before he finally moves it. He clears out all his Area 51 stuff and Kitten Calendars.

He doesn't know where he's going, now. But hey…he got shot at, bombed at, and warped halfway around the world to save the planet from alien hell. What could be college- and a few job interviews- compared to that?


End file.
